Comparison is the thief of joy, it is widely claimed. As a ’90s kid — and now a glum adult — I would like to contend that and swear that nothing eradicates joy from everyday existence faster than back pain. Therefore, the primary purpose of my existence is to eliminate inconveniences for my back, and so, my preferred mode of gaming is away from a stiff chair and in the warm embrace of a cushy couch where I can sit wrapped in a blanket.
Gaming consoles — or even a Windows laptop hooked to a wireless controller and to a TV or a large display — can fulfill that requirement. But when I wish to distract myself from the sullenness of working from home and not really engage in hardcore gaming, I find myself reaching out to my phone and not a gaming console. Sadly, though, the ease of gaming on a phone accompanies the immediate regret in the form of neck pain. Hence, with the turning of the year, I am placing my bets on a phone that doubles as a gaming console with the help of specialized tools to aid in connecting to a larger display — monitor, TV, or projector.
I’m talking about the Redmagic 9S Pro, a phone dedicated to gaming. Below, I will take you through all the ways the phone can be utilized for gaming on a large screen and explain why you would want to consider buying one, especially if you like casual gaming without much commitment. Before that, here’s a brief introduction to the phone.
Why the Redmagic is unique
The Redmagic 9S Pro’s unusual cyberpunk aesthetic already makes you believe it is a one-of-a-kind phone. No matter the angle you look at it, it unequivocally amazes you with its distinctive appearance. Despite the sharp edges and neat skin, the designs feel very refined.
Redmagic has nailed some of the firsts as a phone company before gaming phones became a norm. It introduced capacitive trigger buttons to help you be better at gaming. Additionally, a high-speed fan is built inside the Redmagic 9S Pro’s chassis to vent out any heat ejected from the chipset while gaming. The fan is automatically activated while running games or charging, so the phone never appears to heat up much.
Driving the phone is an overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which is paired to 12GB of RAM on my unit. On top of that, a striking 6.8-inch AMOLED display with an under-display selfie camera and a nearly bezel-less outlook makes it one of the finest and most attractive pieces of mobile hardware from 2024.
With these features and specifications, the Redmagic 9S Pro is grossly underutilized by being limited to Android games. I say this because while Android phones — or phones, in general — have adopted key hardware components from PCs, the software has yet to match the same finesse as desktop environments. And while there are methods to force-fit mobile devices into PC setups, the endeavor requires efforts that not everyone is willing to make.
This is where the Redmagic 9S Pro comes into play, with its specialized modes to activate a gaming console-like environment without any special hackery. This is accomplished with a mix of software features and external controls that the phone offers.
A special button for a special mode
Besides the circular power button on the right side of the Redmagic 9S Pro lies a two-way slider switch with slopey accents and metallic red color. Flicking the switch upward activates a special mode on the phone called “Game Space.” When you turn on Game Space, the screen rotates horizontally as the phone enters a distinct interface.
The games installed on the Redmagic 9S Pro are listed in the “Game Lobby” as large tiles that can be stacked in a list or snapped to a grid. Tapping each tile or card shows when the game was installed and the total number of hours you have spent playing the specific game. The space also lets you access one-touch controls to toggle audio and fan on or off along with different controls to change the view of the interface.
With the red switch slotted upward, the phone is restricted to the game space, and you can’t use it normally. But this interface is not where the Redmagic 9S Pro really stands out. The features, although less nuanced, can also be seen in the form of game modes for other devices.
Instead, the 9S Pro offers a rather unique experience when you project the phone onto a bigger display.
Gaming on a big screen
This Redmagic gaming phone’s true superpower lies in its desktop mode. While other phone brands emphasize a desktop environment for work — as Samsung does with its Linux-like DeX interface — the 9S Pro favor a gaming-oriented setup that appears particularly inspired by a console.
There are two ways to utilize this specialized mode: by connecting to a display either with a wired connection or wireless. In both methods, you can either directly cast the contents of the phone’s screen onto a larger display or extend like you would with a computer or laptop, so you can continue interacting with your phone while also viewing the Game Space being cast to an external display.
With the wireless mode, you start by searching for a wireless display — one that supports Miracast or Chromecast — on the Redmagic 9S Pro.
The wireless casting functionality is native to Android, which means the phone’s screen is simply duplicated on the larger display. A setup like that isn’t exactly beneficial, especially while gaming, since you would need to look at the phone to ensure you are hitting the right buttons. So, Redmagic takes a different approach to remedy that issue.
In the extended screen mode, you see a display like the one seen below. The screen turns into a wireless touchpad that you can use to interact with the interface.
Next, when you cast the phone wirelessly onto a bigger screen, the phone’s screen can be turned into a large virtual gamepad. On the left of this gamepad, there’s a direction pad and on the right, a set of ABXY buttons. Two joysticks for right and left are overlaid with these sets of buttons. This layout appears as an overlay on top of the actual game’s interface.
The overlay can be hidden, so it’s easier to navigate through the maze of convoluted menus on mobile games, and resurfaced when you are ready to dive into action. This is even useful for games that don’t inherently support gamepads, as the keys can be remapped over existing buttons.
The overlay buttons are massive and fairly responsive, and I could get used to them with barely any practice or peeling my eyes away from the TV. With this setup, I thoroughly enjoyed games such as Call of Duty: Mobile, especially since I could continue using the capacitive triggers that I had mapped for shooting.
With the unfair, pleasantly unethical, advantage that a large 50-inch TV added for me, I scored some of the best kill-to-death ratios in deathmatches and constantly emerged as the MVP in the majority of the games. The bigger graphics and the brighter colors of the TV also make it much easier to scan for enemies across the landscape.
Adding to the experience was the fact the Redmagic 9S Pro transmitted the visuals at up to 120 frames per second (fps) with low graphics and 60 fps with “Ultra” video quality. Even though this is practically a mobile game upscaled to a massive display, the finer nuances are nearly undetectable from just a few feet away. More importantly, there is barely any latency on wireless connections even when my router sits in a different room.
Where wired connection rules
With wired connections — either through HDMI or DisplayPort, the Redmagic 9S Pro automatically connects in the most appropriate setting, and you don’t need to manually toggle between duplicating the screen or extending it. With the red Game Space switch set to its off position, the screen is simply duplicated just as it is for any other phone that supports video out over its USB port. But when the switched is flicked on, the external display shows its console-like interface while the phone’s display becomes a touchpad.
The cast display adjusts to the size and resolution of the second screen, eliminating any letterboxing or empty bars around the display.
However, with the phone hooked to a display using a wire, using it to control the larger screen can feel cumbersome and jarring. Thankfully, there are a few ways around it. First, you can connect a keyboard and a mouse to operate the console-like ecosystem. Redmagic even gives you tools like key-mapping software that you can use to assign various keyboard and mouse buttons to each game separately. While it would be slightly easier if there were presets for games, you have to configure the control manually.
Nonetheless, you still get the advantage of using a keyboard and mouse for games that could benefit from the extra physical keys. More importantly, since the keyboard and mouse connected via this method are not detected in games like PUBG Mobile or Call of Duty: Mobile, you are not paired with other players using emulators or similar setups for first-person shooter gaming.
To overcome the limitations of ports, I use a . I relay an HDMI cable out of the hub and connect a wired mouse and keyboard through the USB ports. And to make sure I don’t run out of power while gaming on a large screen, I connect a charger using the hub’s USB-C port.
I chose this hub over any other because it comes with a screen on top, which means I can see charging speeds and get a sense of the screen resolution via HDMI. Thanks to this tiny screen, I know the Redmagic 9S Pro projects to my 4K monitor at full 4K resolution at 60Hz.
While getting higher refresh rates could be a challenge over HDMI 2.0 (since most USB hubs without Thunderbolt don’t support HDMI 2.1 or newer standards), you can still use a USB-to-DisplayPort cable to relay contents at 4K resolution and up to 120Hz refresh rate. The onboard Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s GPU can handle the demand for this high-resolution output over the USB port. At the same time, the fan helps maintain a steadily convenient temperature inside the phone despite the load.
A wired setup involving a mouse and keyboard is especially great if you like to game while sitting at a desk. But like I said at the beginning of the article, my objective this winter is to hole up in my sofa for as long as I can. So, I turned to a Bluetooth controller that lets me play games and control the phone’s interface from a distance.
For this task, I picked up the , one of the most versatile gaming controllers. Although the extendable section is designed to keep the phone — or a Nintendo Switch — in between the two sides of the gamepad, Bluetooth connectivity means it works seamlessly even without a device tucked in those claws. Each of the grips features an individual vibration motor for rumble, and the trigger buttons have hall effect switches, similar to a PlayStation 5’s controllers, for a precise level of pressing, which can be especially useful for controlling throttle in racing games.
The primary reason I chose this controller is that it can connect to a device in four different modes. In wireless connections, it can emulate a regular Android gamepad but can also replicate a PlayStation DualShock controller and Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons. In wired mode, it can work as an Xbox controller. Based on the game I run — and whether it supports an Android gamepad or not — I can choose the mode to run.
For instance, since Call of Duty has native support for PS DualShock controllers, I was simply to slot the GameSir into the DS mode and use it native key mapping without any hackery. However, for games such as Mech Arena or Genshin Impact that do not support controllers (at least on Android), GameSir’s app can also be used to map custom controls over practically any game.
The Redmagic 9S Pro, hooked to my 50-inch QLED TV and connected wirelessly to the GameSir controller, makes the ideal setup for me to enjoy a plethora of games without actually having to get up from my cozy spot.
A similar setup can be achieved using a wireless connection, with two wireless devices in a signal chain — the controller and the wireless display. You might witness some latency, though, which may not be favorable for competitive games. But at the same time, having the phone handy also means you can control the interface almost immediately, especially if the controller you are using does not have a touchpad built in.
I spent countless hours trying to nail the same level of dexterity on Call of Duty: Mobile as with the virtual joystick above, but jamming physical buttons and joysticks feels like a more satisfying experience than tapping a screen. It might be a different case with you, but the Redmagic 9S Pro’s flexibility allows plenty of room for adjustment for all measures.
Besides Call of Duty, I extensively played Shadow Fight 4 (comparable to Street Fighter), especially since it offers native controller support. Similarly, Farlight 84, a lighthearted battle royale that looks like Fortnite and Apex Legends had a baby, is another title I thoroughly enjoyed thanks to this setup.
But that’s not where I settled. Of course, Android allows all sorts of emulation tools to run classic Nintendo, PlayStation, PSP, or even older Windows games. So I installed Dolphin Emulator, PPSSPP Emulator, and Winlator, snagged a few free ROMs off the internet, and ran a bunch of my favorite games from my childhood and teenage years, such as Need For Speed: Most Wanted, successfully rotting on my couch for the entirety of the Christmas break.
All this happened while I barely experienced any glitches in the gameplay with these emulators and got stable frame rates, thanks to the constantly running fan at the back. Redmagic also allows connecting to a laptop or Windows PC and running Android games while you utilize the connected peripherals, but that’s not the utility I’m going after.
The Redmagic 9S Pro is oddly satisfying
Over the time I have spent with the Redmagic 9S Pro, I have had an unwavering opinion that there is no phone like it. Perhaps the ones that are are from the same brand. After a slight learning curve, I thoroughly enjoyed gaming on the Redmagic 9S Pro and especially cherished times when I spent playing games on the larger display. If you tap into the world of emulators, there’s hardly a chance you will emerge from it without spending a few days just wheeling in nostalgia.
Even without the casting features, the Redmagic 9S Pro is commendable as a gaming phone. Besides a souped-up flagship Snapdragon processor, the dedicated cooling fan and the trigger button give you such an advantage over competitors. Meanwhile, the RGB lighting sets the right mood for gaming.
Most importantly, for the hardware it brings, the 9S Pro has an unbeatable price. For , you get the unlocked version that also includes an 80W fast charger. If you were to spend $250 more, you could get a newer generation of gaming phone from Redmagic with a Snapdragon 8 Elite instead and 16GB of RAM, though that might be overkill. The 9S Pro, on the other hand, brings unmatched value and can be just as good as a primary phone as it will be as a secondary phone specifically for gaming — all depending on your budget. Either way, you will be blown away.
